The team is on a run of six races without a podium finish for the first time since 2006 following struggles in both Darwin and Townsville.
Triple Eight’s Townsville trouble came on a weekend where fellow Ford teams Tickford, Grove and Dick Johnson Racing shared the victories.
It’s been a somewhat perplexing mid-season slump for the Red Bull Ampol team, which won first-time out with its Mustangs in February.
Big swings
The context of Triple Eight’s Townsville was an apparent strategic decision to stray outside of its known setups to explore the sensitivities of the Ford package.
It was a move flagged by Broc Feeney in the immediate aftermath of Darwin, where the team had started the weekend in a hole and struggled to pull itself out.
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“We came here saying we’re going to have a swing and test some things,” Dutton explained to Speedcafe on Sunday evening in Townsville.
“We said, ‘we want to do some learning at the expense of ultimate performance if we get it wrong, so let’s back ourselves to get it right’. And we didn’t get it right.
“Clearly, even when we’re learning, the goal is not to qualify 18th, but the competition is so tight up and down the lane. If you drop two percent, you’re nowhere.”
Practice curveball
Will Brown and Broc Feeney were second and fifth respectively in Friday’s single practice session, before qualifying just 19th and 16th later that afternoon.
Practice had been interrupted by a late red flag, which meant the field did not get to do a qualifying simulation run at the end of the session.
“The red flag made it a perfect storm. Yes, everyone missed their quali sim, but for a team who’s having a swing, that’s terrible,” said Dutton.
“We had decent race cars in P1… but we were caught off-guard by just how bad we would be in the first quali, because usually there’s not that big a gap from our race car to quali car.
“We paid a hefty penalty for not being able to get that quali sim. That put us on the back foot.”
Third strike
Brown and Feeney drove through the pack to finish seventh and 10th respectively in Friday’s opener, before again falling down in Saturday qualifying.
It wasn’t until Sunday that Feeney’s qualifying form returned to anything like what is expected: fifth in the regular session and seventh in the Shootout.
By that point Dutton said the team had gone searching in three different directions, also utilising its customer car of Jackson Walls.
“When you’re having those swings, you’re not fine-tuning, and your opposition are, so there’s no way you’re going to be P1,” said Dutton.
“So I was actually really happy with a P5, P7 for qualifying, because without refinement, to actually do that, we saw a step change.
“It’s one thing to say you’re going to learn things, but ultimately it’s only the learnings relative to everyone else that matters.”
Feeney failed to be a factor in the Sunday race despite the improved qualifying, finishing in sixth place and 17 seconds from victory.
Clutch hitting
While Triple Eight’s weekend of exploration in Townsville didn’t produce any trophies, it could help it secure the biggest prizes later in the season.
Dutton affirmed the decision to take “big swings” with setup was driven by a desire to build a “toolbox” of tuning solutions that work with the seemingly sensitive Mustang.
“It’s about knowing the sensitivities,” said Dutton.
“If I’ve got a problem with braking or turn-in instability or whatever it might be, what are my go-to tools? And what are the side effects?
“You want to learn all those different things so that when the car isn’t in the sweet spot, you know what to throw in and what it will do.
“If you’re getting through weekends without having that toolbox at your disposal, you run a risk of getting to Finals, or Bathurst, and having a problem and not knowing the best tool for it.”
Out of the park
Triple Eight boss Jamie Whincup was highly critical of Walkinshaw TWG’s claim it had used the regular season as testing for the Finals last year.
But the combination of its Ford switch and the format has both required and allowed Triple Eight to take a similar route.
“Big swings like [Townsville] are made possible by the format. In years gone by you couldn’t risk a P18 quali,” Dutton added.
“It’s still painful. People think that when Triple Eight has a swing, we hit it out of the ball park every time. But that’s not the reality.”
Triple Eight remains second in the teams’ championship behind Grove Racing after Townsville, while Feeney slipped to second behind Matt Payne in the drivers’.
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